Alpha Protocol Interview

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The hugely ambitious spy RPG is just around the corner. We quiz Obsidian on what gamers can expect.

By IGN Staff

In some ways, Alpha Protocol is shaping up to be exactly what you'd expect from Obsidian - a gargantuan, open-ended RPG. In others, it's a whole new adventure for the studio, delving into the theme of espionage in a real-world setting. Regardless, Alpha Protocol has the potential to put the role-playing back in RPG, so numerous are its options for character building and its branching paths. This is a complex, constantly evolving world, where actions can have ramifications that you may not understand until hours later. And with 32 very distinct endings and 120 hours of recorded dialogue, it's been a massive project. With the game on the verge of release we got in touch with Alpha Protocol's Associate Producer Matt Hickman for a chat.

IGN AU: Mass Effect, more than any other game, has been the one most likened to Alpha Protocol's storytelling process. Is this flattering or worrying? How do you manage expectations?

Matt Hickman: We obviously have a close history with Bioware, and have a tremendous amount of respect for their work. While in some regards, the two games might look similar upon first glance, once players get a chance to spend time with Alpha Protocol, they'll be able to see that there are some pretty significant differences below the surface.

Alpha Protocol's dialogue system is one of the primary differences that we're really proud of. In keeping with Alpha Protocol's espionage theme, we really wanted to make the interactions between players and the game's characters have a suspenseful feel. By timing player's responses we think we've made their conversations more instinctual and exciting. Additionally, the fact that players won't be able to revisit conversations means that they'll really have to live with their choices.

Shooting a guy in the ass just isn't good form, dude.

IGN AU: What will gamers remember most about Alpha Protocol three years from now? Which core gameplay and storytelling concepts will be most influential?

Matt Hickman: I certainly don't want to presume that I know what players will remember from Alpha Protocol, but I do hope that they'll walk away having experienced upfront action, and a set of interesting choices that will add up to a unique experience when compared to others who have played the game. Specifically I think players will walk away feeling that they had control over the story, the characters and the outcomes. In that respect I think we've done something really special.

IGN AU: Did opting for a customisable lead character end up making the writing process more difficult? If you're creating an everyman spy, it seems like it might be tricky to give him too many extreme traits.

Matt Hickman: The beauty of the "everyman" theme is that people will naturally craft Mike to whoever they want him to be. In that sense what's an ideal to one player is an afterthought for another. We wanted players to be able to play as a sadistic assassin, a no-nonsense professional, and everything in between. While making certain choices may open up or close off certain parts of the game, every choice is still valid and leads to a compelling endgame, and no gamer should feel cheated by the experience. By allowing players to choose their play style and rewarding them no matter what that may be I think we found a great balance between player choice and crafting a tight story. Granted it created a lot more leg work making sure balancing was right on the money but with the help of our QA folks I think we really hit it.

An Alpha Protocol training sequence. Sorry.

IGN AU: This is an enormous and broad game; what kind of percentage of the game do you think the typical gamer will experience on the first run through?

Matt Hickman: It's hard to say what a typical gamer might experience on the first play through. All of us probably know a variety of different gamers, from the hard-core completionists, who simply must do everything the game has to offer, to players who simply want to run through the main story as fast as possible.

That being said, gamers won't be able to see everything that Alpha Protocol has to offer on the first run through. Due to the nature of cause and effect that permeates every facet of the game there are situations, characters, and outcomes that simply can't be accessed all on one play through. A player may not have the option to play certain missions, because of certain choices, and in some cases may not even meet significant characters within the game. That being said I don't want imply you'll have a feeling of missing out on something, the reaction we usually see is more of an eagerness to see how the story could have unfolded differently.

IGN AU: How vastly different can some of these scenarios become, based on your decisions? Can you give us a fresh example?

Matt Hickman: I don't want to give too much away, but there's a certain character, who soon after meeting, you must choose whether to save or let die. We spent hundreds of hours building that character's story, and there are hours of it integrated into the narrative of the game. On my first play through I decided to let the character die, basically cutting off a whole level of character interaction within the game. It wasn't out of spite towards the character, I simply had to make a split-second decision, and my character had to live with the consequence. In some cases those consequences are missing out on allied troops assisting you in a mission.

IGN AU: Alpha Protocol went through several delays and retools. Now that development is finally wrapping up, can you discuss the key moments that held up the development process? We've heard a lot of different, sometimes conflicting, reports.

Matt Hickman: The decision to move the game out from October was merely for repositioning and constituted a business decision only.

Guy Incognito.

IGN AU: Do you have internal stat collection processes in place to gauge how different players experience the game? Which decisions and directions are being taken, and so on?

Matt Hickman: We were very diligent about tracking play through choices, outcomes and reactions to them. We wanted to make absolutely sure that after all the decisions were made and the cards were down so to speak the outcome was what the player expected.

There is a great in game feature that helps with this. After each mission you receive a summary that lists all of the objectives, optional objectives and choices you made within each mission and the consequence of that action. By tracking all of these results on a given play through we could keep track of how each player's run through was unfolding.

IGN AU: Is it fair to say that Alpha Protocol's suffered from something of an identity crisis over the years because of the delays? Or did the delays themselves have much of an impact on the marketing momentum?

Matt Hickman: Honestly the delays didn't affect the identity of the game. We've always had a very solid vision of what we wanted the game to be and what we wanted the look and feel to be like. We're very happy with what we're putting in people's hands after all this time.

The delay has actually helped us quite a bit in regards to marketing. We have a great push going on in the last few months here putting up some great trailers and getting a lot of information out to consumers we weren't prepared to originally.

IGN AU: Being such an ambitious title for Obsidian, it seems like a sequel would be an easier venture now that the engine, gameplay and characters are in place. Is that how you view the situation? Or are you waiting to gauge the response from the market first?

Matt Hickman: We'd love to revisit Alpha Protocol. From the constant action to the mysteriously and dynamic dialogue, there's a lot to love about the spy genre and we'd like to continue to explore it.